We first meet Cadence ‘Cadie’ Kessler as she’s illegally harvesting mountain pine beetles off a tree in the New Hampshire forest. A researcher, she needs proof that the beetles have arrived to their area, threatening the death of trees and the heightened likelihood of rampant forest fires. But within pages, mutilating a tree on public lands is the least of her concerns. The ... Read More...
The Fortunate Ones: A Novel
Things are starting to turn around in Charlie Boykin’s life. The child of a single mother who works as a cocktail waitress, he’s been one of the only white boys at his school and in their Nashville neighborhood. Now, he’s gotten a needs-based scholarship to Yeatman, a prestigious, private high-school. Even better, he’s assigned an upper classman mentor who turns out to be the ... Read More...
The House in the Cerulean Sea
Often when it’s time to begin a book review I try and draw from the facts—plot, place, biographical details. Because I read so much (and don’t have the discipline I should) specifics tend to blur by the time I sit down to write so in starting there I bring the book back to me. All of that is moot when it comes to novels like The House in the Cerulean Sea. I can sum up the book ... Read More...
The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
I’m a fan of modern retellings of classics. I realize they can risky and there are times they don’t work (I’m looking at you Anna K), but when I saw someone was taking on Jane Eyre I was ready. The Wife Upstairs is set in Birmingham, Alabama not England, and is about Jane, a young woman trying to build a new life for herself. She walks dogs in a wealthy neighborhood, ... Read More...
The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
For ten years Lakshmi has worked hard to build her own business. Now, at 30, she hopes to use her connections among the wealthy women of Jaipur to score a financial payout large enough for her to finally finish her own home and bring her parents from their small village to live with her. They’d married her off when she was fifteen, but she’d disgraced them by running away from ... Read More...
December Reading Recap
Let’s hear it for 2021! Without having done a damn thing it’s probably the most anticipated year of my lifetime. This winter may hold more darkness than light, but for many of us, the fact that we’ll have a decent, caring, grown-up in the White House in 19 days is enough to spark some hope. As is the fact that my December reading was on fire. I read 19 (what?!) books this month ... Read More...
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